Differences in technique and sound in beginner and expert cello performances and use of acoustic information to provide support for performance techniques
Taichi Sato, Shoichi Miyagawa, Hiromi Yamatani · The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America · 2013
We studied the differences in performance between beginners and expert musicians by taking cello performance as the object of our research. By principal component analysis of the beginning part of a performance—the part when a performer just begins to play—we were able to distinguish between performances by beginners and those by experts. We showed that the process of mastery of an instrument, in which the sound of a beginning performer becomes better, can be evaluated using principal component analysis. We studied the characteristics of the ability to skillfully draw the bow across the cello strings, and we created acoustic information based on these characteristics. By giving this acoustic information to beginners, the beginners learned to become almost as skillful as expert cellists in their ability to draw the bow skillfully across the strings, even though they were only beginners.